


Flesh and Bone

by SenkoWakimarin



Series: Let Them Eat Flesh [8]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Billy Russo is a Horrible Human Being, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 17:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16937940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: David and Sarah reach a conclusion. Billy reaches one of his own. And Frank, well, Frank takes a walk.





	Flesh and Bone

**Author's Note:**

> Ew, I had to write Billy Russo.

David understands.

As long as David’s interacted with Frank, and probably well before they met, Frank’s been perfecting the ability to push away. He doesn’t want to rely on anyone else, he doesn’t want anyone to rely on him. No more entanglements, that’s Frank’s goal. No more pain when people die. When they leave.

David knows Frank would rather cut off his own hands than intentionally cause harm to anyone in this house. Sitting alone in the dining room, feeling the warmth that had built between them shed off him in the open space, David balls his hands up at his sides and tries not to let this hurt so bad.

Because he understands. He does. All that pain in Frank is still so raw; it’s the most living part of him. All the ways he hurts, physically, emotionally; that’s always more vivid than anything, except maybe the anger. The anger comes from the pain, so maybe it’s all the same.

The worst of it is that he wants, so badly, to believe that Frank wants what he wants. Wants to stay here, wants to be with him. He can understand Frank wanting and not knowing how to handle it; he can understand the dipshit ‘mustn’t touch what isn’t mine’ thing, even though Sarah’s all but explicitly told Frank she doesn’t care what they get up to together. Sarah wants to see Frank happy almost as badly as David does, and it’s so hard because Frank resists anything that threatens to _make_ him happy.

He doesn’t know if he should go back to Frank’s room or if it’s better to be firm about this. If he goes back and Frank touches him, he’s not strong enough to pull away twice. Frank’s tangled up in David, wrapped around his ribs and twisted in his guts, so David’s happiest when they’re close, when he can see him and feel him and know he’s okay. Walking away when Frank was so open for him there, so willing, after so long of nothing… it would hurt less if Frank had actually cut him open and yanked out his innards.

What else was he supposed to do, though? They need to _talk,_ they need to _deal with this_ and not just the relationship shit either -- if Russo is awake that means they have more problems, until the bastard is locked up somewhere secure enough that David can sleep again. Because he’s not going to be resting too well, knowing Russo is conscious again, knowing he remembered at least something of what had happened. He’d want to come after Frank, and he knew where the house was -- could be he’d come here looking to hurt people who just happened to have a connection to Frank.

They need a plan, they need a course of action, and he’s so scared already that he’s ruined things with Frank -- passing on the infection, pulling away when he finally opened up to him. His whole body is a tangle of anxiety, and he doesn’t have anywhere to pin it. He wants to go back to Frank, wants to shake him, want to fight about it if that’s the only way to get some kind of dialog going.

He leaves Frank sleep, instead, and feels like a coward, sitting down to watch his family eat dinner, helping Zach with math homework, working with Leo as she practices her lines for her drama club’s production of Our Town. He’s laying in bed with Sarah, listening to her vent about some rude coworkers’ antics, when he hears Frank leave his room, the stairs creak in passing, the soft double beep of the alarm system acknowledging the opening of the front door. Sarah goes quiet too, both of them listening, and then she sighs.

It’s not exactly an invitation, but they communicate well enough for it to serve. He has the most trouble talking about Russo, the mention of whom gets Sarah’s pulse-rate up and her teeth grinding, but she lets him talk until there’s nothing more to say.

“Do you think he’s… god, weird to say it, but maybe he’s guilty about _not_ killing the bastard?” Sarah asks, resting with her cheek on his chest, his fingers running idly through her hair. “I mean, as stiff-backed as he is about touching either of us, for him to latch onto you like that and then refuse to talk, it’s gotta be something big. He knows both of us would have rather he put that piece of shit in the ground… Then he kills some innocent nurse first thing on waking up, you know Frank’s going to take that on himself. And then he’s going to get weird about you because he always gets weird about it.”

David might have blushed, were his circulation up to it. As it is, he feels distinctly dimwitted not to have seen that himself, too busy worrying about Frank’s feelings toward _him_. He tilts his head down and kisses the crown of Sarah’s head, feels her grip on him tighten in response. “Love my genius wife,” he says, and grins when she laughs. “So what do I do now?”

“Now? Sleep. I’m tired.” She tensed all down her back, that sleepy way she had of stretching while suppressing a yawn. “But later? Pin him down, David. Physically, if you have to. He can’t keep carrying that shit.”

-*-

Tethered to the bed, laying on his back with nothing better to look at than the ceiling, Billy Russo feels perfectly at peace.

There had been fear, but even in waking here it had been gone, a ghost. Of course he’d been terrified, when he’d had Frankie, twice dead but still not in the ground, rising up righteous before him. Anyone with half a functioning brain would have been scared, seeing the look in Frank’s red-rimmed eyes that night. Even beat to shit, Frank cut an intimidating figure.

The rage Billy had understood, even found a strange comfort in. Nothing in all creation made him feel less lonely, less isolated in the world than seeing that kind of fury on another man’s face. He knew that drive too, the one that pushed Frank past the pain, past logic, everything narrowed down to taking out the source of whatever had caused him any measure of hurt.

Seeing Frankie like that again, that told him the only thing he’d needed to know -- that he was still not alone. Frankie and him, they were brothers, cut from the same cloth, solving similar problems with the same caliber solution.

But brothers could and did turn on each other. Nobody knew half so well as Bill Russo how fickle the love forged in blood was. His own meth-head mother had given him away; how could he expect a brother to stick with him?

There was a difference between lonely and singular. Bill was figuring he was going to find himself lonely now, whether he found a way out of here or not, but Frank was still just like him. They were still brothers, even if they hated each other now, that old love twisted up and made ugly. Lonely but not alone; that was Billy.

He knows Frank is alive out there in the wide world, though no one will tell him straight. Dinah, too; Frankie wouldn’t let a good woman die if he could help it. Judging by the rough handling he’d received since waking up, he had to assume she was pissed. Hell’s fury, woman scorned, all that horseshit. He imagines she’s still sore about Stein -- she should be thanking him, clearing out another fucking zombie clogging the workforce.

But more important than figuring out what drives Dinah’s mind, he wants to know where Frank is hiding. Did they throw him in prison after all his noble service? Did they let him run? If so, Bill was very keen to know where to, because there was a conversation to be had there. Frank had said his piece, said it with broken glass and Bill’s fractured skull, sure.

Now it was Bill’s turn, and Bill wasn’t sure yet which tone he wanted to take, but he knew it was a conversation no one was going to keep him from having.

He smiles to himself, watching the ceiling, the shadows shift as someone opens the door to his room. It hurts, smiling -- just about any shift in expression hurts now, pulling sharp at the mask of scar tissue that made up his face. That pain didn’t help the eternal ache behind his eyes, but he smiles anyway. It’s only right to smile for guests.

He listens to sensible heels click against old linoleum, letting his mind paint a picture of the woman in them. Sensible shoes, sensible clothes. Bland face. Probably dolled up but not worth the effort. The smell around her was largely tobacco, so not a nurse. Young, he thinks, judging by her lack of hesitance in approaching, but not so young.

When he turns his head to look at her, he frowns a little. She’s old -- but not so old. Iron grey hair, tight wrinkles at the corners of her mouth, hair drawn back to flow over her shoulders. Her eyes are magnified slightly by her glasses, a bright hazel, and she looks like she smiles maybe once in a blue never. He finds himself grinning again in spite of his irritation at having failed at his own game; the briefcase she carries seals the most important fact about her -- she’s definitely not a nurse.

“Mister Russo,” she says dryly, not just unamused but utterly unaffected by his grin or the scars tearing up his face, by his ruined nose and torn lips. His smile fades a little, curiosity blooming. “Apologies for the late hour of my visit. I represent an organization that would like to extend hospitality to you, should you elect to seize it.”

Billy wants to know what organization that would be, but he can narrow it down pretty far in his mind. It never crossed his mind that she might be part of some kind of trap. She was too rigid, too methodical for it to be an act.

“Currently, you hold some small sympathy among the general public. Many see you as a victim. We have streamlined media coverage of your… ill advised escape attempt, to foster this sympathy. Coached and cleaned up, there’s a slim chance you might eek by in a fair trial, provided your murder of Sam Stein does not become public. A deeper general sympathy presently leans heavily toward the infected.”

Her face doesn’t change at all, but there’s a certain sharpness to the way she enunciates that last word, and that really says everything he needs to know about her and her organization's stance on the zombie situation.

“However, such trial would drag out for some time and my employers would prefer to make use of your particular talents in a timely fashion. As a warm-blooded American, you have _our_ sympathies, which hold somewhat more clout than those of the general public. Should you find this amenable, we will provide you with a window graciously open during which you should easily be able to exit the premises and disappear. We ask only that you seek out one particular individual before vanishing, in return for our efforts on your behalf.”

Billy doesn’t even mind the pain that comes with his smile. He has a very good feeling about the opportunity he’s being offered, and Bill has rarely, given time to think, been wrong about a gut feeling. His voice, when he speaks, is still rough, but he keeps his tone polite.  “Who would that be, ma’am?”

“A thief,” she says, her lips quirking in a fleeting, tight little smile. “One you might be more interested in than you’d think. He calls himself ‘Micro’; he removed a sizable amount of money from an offshore account belonging to one of our ventures, transferring it to an account in the name of a ‘P. Castiglione’, believed to be Pete Castiglione, a man who bears shocking resemblance to Mr. Castle. We can provide you with information on Micro’s identity, should you elect not to take your chances in a public trial. Please, take your time thinking it over. We’ll be touch.”

She turns from him with such brisk sharpness he’s certain it’s meant to be offensive, and she walks briskly away. She says something soft in passing to his security detail in the hall and he looks back up at the ceiling, thinking.

He doesn’t much care for the idea of being beholden again to anyone. Hadn’t worked out so well with Rawlins, for all his calm self-assured dickishness; Rawlins had gotten himself killed, and Frankie hadn’t even thanked Bill for the opportunity.

Well, he might have some fantastic head injuries, but he remembers names just fine. Faces too. ‘Micro’ was the alias Frankie’s little basement buddy had used. Lieberman. And one more thing Billy remembered -- he remembered Lieberman’s address.

So let these people help him get out of the hospital and slip the eye of the law for a while. But once he hit the street, he’d be his own man again.

He thought he’d pay the Liebermans a little visit though, why not. Good chance he could motivate one of them to point him in Frankie’s direction.

And then he and Frank could talk. Man to man. Heart to heart.

-*-

There are a number of solutions to the way Frank feels, most of them violent, none of them sustainable in the long run. He means at first, slipping out of the house, to disappear. He wants to, wants to fade out of David’s life, all of their lives, to make things a little easier on them. 

He doesn’t know where to go, walking with his hands buried in his coat pockets, watching his breath cloud in front of him. Spring is slowly crawling in, but it’s still bitter outside, and he hurts, old places in his ribs and his knees that play hell when the weather shifts. Pain was easier to ignore before the infection; now it settles in and nags.

Leaving, disappearing; it would hurt them. And he doesn’t think they’d be any safer without him around if Billy becomes a threat, not really.

An idea starts to form about going to the hospital Billy’s at. He doesn’t have a gun on him, but he wouldn’t need one to deal with Bill. There might even be some satisfaction in snapping his neck manually. 

He disregards the idea out of hand. Even if he could get to Bill, killing him while he’s in custody would only get himself caught or killed. Not worth it, not really. 

In the end, he finds himself standing in the field of some park, listening to the rattle of the chains on the swingset, head cocked back to watch the sky. He’d elected t stay alive. He’d chosen this, and all the complications that it entailed. David had welcomed him into his life, and even if they weren’t  _ his _ , he had something like a family among the Liebermans. What did that mean, in the big picture, except that he needed to protect them? Keep them safe, not fail them the way he’d failed Maria, Frankie, and Lisa. 

The sigh he exhales is a plume of warmth, his body even like this warm enough to steam the air. He is alive and free and he has the responsibilities of a living man to address. He can’t run.

He won’t run.


End file.
